


Crescent Moon

by erinmckenziee



Category: Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice
Genre: Drama, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Family, Family Drama
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-28
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2019-10-18 04:58:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17574329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erinmckenziee/pseuds/erinmckenziee
Summary: Ever since Derek Shepherd relocated to Seattle, his life has been turned upside down by not only the arrival of a cheating wife, but a tragedy in their family that left behind far more questions than answers. Now, years later, can two people who were already at odds find the kind of love and healing they still desperately need? AU Addek. Partial PP crossover.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello lovely Addek readers. So this story has existed on Fanfiction for a few years but I am now moving it over here in the hopes that it will inspire me to finally finish it lol.
> 
> This story begins in a flashback, but will be set during mid-season 5 of Grey's, and mid-season 2 of Private Practice. "Crescent Moon" by KT Tunstall is one of my all time favorite songs (hence the title)...I would highly recommend listening when you can. Anyway, I hope you enjoy chapter one!
> 
> TW: Story deals with suicide and mental illness.
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

_"So feel me Pulling all your oceans up around my body_  
_And if it should ever let me leave this place too soon_  
_You'll always know that I'm a crescent moon"_

**Addison**  
March 2007  
  
This was how Addison Montgomery—formerly known as Shepherd—pictured it:

Three o'clock that cold and sunny Seattle afternoon, she was behind the wheel, hands in the two-and-ten position because that was the way her father, who spent hours teaching her to drive when she first got her permit, liked her to drive, and she didn't want anything to happen to the car her father had owned for almost half her life. The jeep was eight years old and smelled like a subtle mixture of coffee and fishing gear, and if she looked in the rearview mirror, she could see where her parents used to strap in her booster seat.

Doc, the terrier mix that once belonged to Meredith Grey but was now in the care of Addison and her husband, Derek, rode with Addison because he was still rambunctious and liked to nuzzle the driver's ear from the back seat, and Addison had worried that he might distract Carrie. Doc and Addison were two miles behind, with one last stop to make after the vet's office before heading home.

Her daughter: Carrie Madeline Shepherd. Dark, yet auburn-tinged straight hair and ocean eyes; the perfect combination of her parents. She was wearing the red and grey hoodless MIT sweatshirt—endearingly large—that had been given to her for last Christmas from Jason. It was so Carrie to be wearing it, just two days after their break-up that had also included a box in the mail from Boston full of things she had given him, like her miniature telescope and dog-eared copy of _To Kill a Mockingbird_.

The March day was unusually cold but bright, and although the temperatures had dropped below freezing the night before, the roads were clear of ice. Carrie was thinking of spring break.

Every year since she was in kindergarten they would spend the week up at the cabin in Maine, just north of her father's alma mater Bowdoin College. Some years it would still be snowing so they would go snowshoeing or sledding; whereas others it would be unusually warm, calling for day-long hikes that left Addison questioning why she ever left the city to begin with.

Carrie was sixteen in January, her license was fairly new, and she brought her sense of responsibility to driving the way she did everything else. Straight A's last semester despite starting at a new school mid-term, a talented choral singer, making the varsity swim team last month and coaching lessons for preschool-aged children, such good-heartedness, and pure, steadfast determination to go to Columbia University like her parents, and Addison wondered if that was Carrie's way of trying to hold her and Derek together, to remind them of what they had gotten through together—because of one another—and—unbeknownst to Carrie—where they had conceived their daughter.

To Carrie, Columbia was a reminder of how happy her parents had been, and could be again.

Addison knew her daughter felt bad for leaving the trailer angry that morning, calling Addison a hypocrite for telling everyone that her marriage was fine, when really she and Derek were in the beginning stages of divorce.

So there she was, driving home from school on 103rd Ave., past the rows of towering evergreen trees and frozen creeks, pure white in the sunlight, talking to her father on speaker phone, listening to him tell her how well she swam the 100-meter butterfly that morning with her strong arm extensions and quick breaths.

Derek and Carrie adored each other and had since her birth. In fact, it was because of Derek that their daughter had even been named Carrie. As soon as they found out they were expecting a girl, he had wanted to name her after his mother, Carolyn. But Addison had protested; as much as she loved her mother-in-law, she wanted her daughter to be her own person with her own identity.

Thus, they had compromised with Carrie.

At night, as an infant, when she'd wake up crying and refuse to sleep, she'd quiet only when he would cradle and walk her, singing her made-up songs—as he did for Addison when they were married—as he carried her back and forth across the room overlooking Central Park.

And even those years when Carrie was ten and eleven, and Addison took on more genetics research, Derek would come home from the hospital and he and Carrie would take the Scrabble board into the family room, each playing the funniest words they could think of. Addison could remember the laughter that echoed through the house warming her heart as she sat at her desk, buried in paperwork.

Carrie drove toward the trailer—home—and the towering trees, the road straight and clear. There was no traffic in either direction; on Vashon Island there rarely was. The pavement was sanded and clear of ice, tree branches interlocking overhead and throwing afternoon shadows. 103rd Ave. took a sharp right before turning into Vashon Hwy and then Cedarhurst Road, where their trailer and the meadow surrounding it came into view.

The road was clear, she knew the way; she was such a good driver, and Washington had such strict hands-free laws, but even still Addison knew she would never risk driving with the phone up to her ear, legal or not. Derek had taught Carrie how to drive himself, he could attest to that. She would never hurt him, never hurt herself; she loved her family, she loved her life, so there was no explanation.

Ten minutes later Addison continued along, finished with her errands. She still had a few hours until dark, so she was eager for time with Carrie; it had been a while since they'd really talked, and she knew there was a lot her daughter wanted to say, not just about the divorce, but about her own break-up as well. All Addison wanted to do was hold her daughter close, just be with her because she was smart enough to know that words don't help with break-ups, there was no explaining that everything would get better, that she would heal, that time would pass and the day would come when it didn't hurt so much.

First of all, Addison wasn't even sure she believed that herself.

Vashon Island, while average in size, was a small community; so small that when Addison heard sirens her stomach dropped because she was pretty sure whatever it was would affect someone she knew. It wasn't like being a doctor at the hospital where sirens came with the territory, and could mean anything from a heart attack to a broken wrist.

Driving along Vashon Hwy, Addison slowed down to let the fire truck pass. Doc, in the back seat, paced back and forth. She told him to calm down, everything was okay, they would be home in a minute. She flipped on the signal light, veering off the main road, and saw the burst of flashing lights near her own property.

Some thoughts were too unbearable to allow. She saw a Seattle PD officer gesture for traffic to turn around, go back the other way, and she rolled down the window to tell him she lived there, and still, she wouldn't allow herself to think that the accident belonged to them. But Doc was barking, and he knew, and when the officer recognized Addison and approached the car with that look in his eyes that no human being wanted to see, her heart stopped because her heart knew.

Addison opened the car door. The officer tried to block her but nothing in this world could have held her back. She was right behind Doc running to the front of the long line of police cars, fire engines, and ambulances. She heard someone say:

_She couldn't have even hit the brakes; she must have be going fifty._

And someone else saying:

_Shut up, that's her mother._

The sun glistened off the frozen creek in the distance, but it didn't blind her. Addison saw everything, and her mind took a picture of all that was there and all that wasn't.

The memory would stay with her always, even when, in the future, she moved over a thousand miles away. Distance was no match for this: the car crumpled against the thick tree, billows of black smoke nearly concealing the small silver trailer, rescue workers with no one to rescue parting to let her through, thin streams of blood on the face of her daughter as she lay on the freezing ground, branches blowing against the blue sky that already exposed the small crescent moon; the crescent moon that must have been the last thing Carrie saw on earth.


	2. Chapter 2

_Derek_  
**May 2009**

Just after dawn, the smell of the cherry blossoms that blanketed every other tree Derek Shepherd ran past filled the air. Almost three years after moving to Seattle and purchasing more land than he could even imagine as a Manhattanite, Derek still slept in the small silver trailer that sat just at the edge of a meadow, surrounded by massive evergreen trees.

The sound of his shoes against the gravel path felt so familiar; despite having explored it so many times with Meredith-and, once upon a time, with Doc-over the past two years it had become his sanctuary. A place for him to be alone and practice ignoring the thoughts that still threatened to swallow him whole every day.

A salty breeze began to blow off of the Sound, contrasting the sweet fruity scent and filling Derek's mind with memories of the night before he moved to the West Coast.

Carrie had worn her favorite maroon leather jacket, a 15th birthday present from Derek's most complicated sister but Carrie's favorite aunt, Amelia. Derek remembered seeing the dimpled smile on her face the moment he walked into his office post-five hour surgery; the same dimpled smile that would greet him at the door the second he got home from a 36-hour shift during residency all those years ago.

Since the day she was born, Derek had felt a stronger connection to his daughter than anyone else in the world; a connection that went far beyond the unconditional love that exists between parent and child.

When Derek first laid eyes on his daughter, it had been like watching his own heart beat outside of his chest. It was as if in the span of about five minutes-from the moment he first saw her to when she was placed in his arms-everything in his life made sense. His mother bending over backwards to provide a life for their family, and his own father giving up his life to protect him and Amy. Carrie had been but five minutes old, and already he knew he would do absolutely anything to keep her safe.

...if only that had been possible.

...if only their family hadn't fallen apart.

...if only running through the scent of salt water and cherry blossoms could make him forget.

* * *

**June 2006**

It was a particularly cold and rainy night for June, but Derek so rarely left the hospital these days that the weather was hardly ever on his radar anymore.

Carrie was in the passenger seat next to him, trying to keep him awake as he drove them home in the dark by telling him about a four-year-old in her swim class who finally managed to let go of the side today. He glanced at the clock on the dash—it was nearing midnight.

"Dad?" Carrie said, startling him as they sat at a red light.

"What, sorry?" Derek replied, blinking a few times, snapping out of it.

"I asked if you wanted to go running with me tomorrow morning," Carrie repeated. "Jason's going to a summer orientation up at MIT and it's been awhile since you and I ran together…"

Right then, at that moment, Derek didn't have the heart to tell his daughter that he'd scheduled another surgery for 7am. Especially since five-mile runs through the park had been something he and Carrie had started doing together when she was 12.

"Oh, uh, sure honey," he said quickly. "Sure thing."

He hated himself for hoping she would forget.

By the time they pulled up in front of the house, the wind was howling, pushing the branches angrily against the second story window. The Shepherds had lived in the Upper East Side brownstone for almost 17 years now; from their post-wedding 'honeymoon phase,' to discovering Addison was pregnant with Carrie, to graduating medical school, to Carrie's first steps and first words, to becoming successful surgeons…this house had bore witness to the many milestones of a happy family.

But Derek didn't think about this much anymore, because if he did that would mean coming to terms with the fact that he hadn't felt connected to his wife—both physically and mentally—in months. Blame it on being put in the running for Chief of Surgery at Mt. Sinai Hospital, blame it on Addison picking a fight whenever he worked late; either way, their marriage was not what it used to be, and they both knew it.

Their 15-year-old daughter knew it too.

Securing his jacket, Derek looked over at Carrie after closing the car door. Despite the rain, she stood on the sidewalk, huddled, waiting for him to walk with her to the door. At that moment he felt a surge of love for his daughter, the one thing in his life that had always been good.

"I love you, Bear," he muttered, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and kissing her forehead. Carrie leaned against his chest to further shield herself from the storm. Although she didn't respond verbally, Derek knew.

He always had.

"I'm gonna make some tea before heading up," Carrie said, mid-yawn, upon entering the house. "You want any?"

But, once again, Derek was hardly listening because as soon as he stepped through the front door, a very specific object caught his eye. Unfamiliar, yet so familiar he could recite the age and brand by heart. He wished, oh how he wished he could look away.

Most of all, he wished he could shield Carrie from what he knew in his gut was about to happen.

"Sure, sweetheart," he said, in response to her question.

"Okay," she nodded, before turning on her heel and heading into the kitchen.

Derek swallowed the lump in his throat, wishing with all his might that there were a door shutting off the kitchen from the rest of the house, or world for that matter. One foot in front of the other, he walked up the stairs. With each step, he thought about how he might describe this moment in the future.

_One night, I parked my car. I unlock my front door, go inside my house with my daughter, and something's different. Nothing's different, everything's the same but yet, still, something's different. And I stand there for a while, and then I know._

_See, there are moments for me; you know, usually when I'm in the OR, when I just know what's gonna happen next. So I go upstairs. I see a man's jacket that doesn't belong to me hanging on the post at the bottom of the stairs, and everything I think I know…just shifts; because the jacket that doesn't belong to me is a jacket I recognize._

_As I'm walking down the hall, I'm trying to prepare myself for what I'm gonna see when I go into my bedroom. And what I know now is that when I go into my bedroom, I'm not just gonna see that my wife is cheating on me. I'm gonna see that my wife is cheating on me with Mark, who happened to be my best friend._

_It's just so pedestrian, common and dirty, and cruel; mostly just cruel._

_I left—came out here._

_And I met you._

Life moved in slow motion after that night. The night that not only included discovering his wife cheating on him with his best friend, but getting back into his car and driving until he ran out of gas.

"Derek! Derek! Listen to me! Derek, you can't do this…we have to talk about this…"

If the sound of his wife's pleading voice didn't make him want to vomit, he may have stopped to listen. But Derek could only think of one thing: removing all traces of her.

17 years he had been married to Addison Montgomery Shepherd. 17 Christmases, 17 birthdays. 17 years of feeling her smooth skin beneath his. 17 years of being bound together so tightly not just by wedding vows, but also a love that had given way to life.

"…wait. What are you doing with my clothes?!" Addison screamed. "It was one time! I know that's what people say I know that's always what gets said. It's just I don't know how it happened I don't know what I was thinking he was just here he was just here!"

It was as if the expensive fabric of Addison's clothes burned his hands as he stormed back down the stairs, opening the front door and throwing them outside, into the pouring rain.

Derek's heart pounded in his chest as he screamed at her without abandon.

"YOU SCREW MY BEST FRIEND AND ALL YOU CAN SAY IS, 'HE WAS JUST HERE?!'"

Addison sobbed, huge, pathetic sobs that under any other circumstance would have broken Derek's heart. After all, this woman was the mother of his child, the love of his life. He would never lay a hand on her as she stood her ground; never just toss her out the door as if she were a piece of garbage.

Derek leaned against the door, listening to his wife sob on the other side. If it hadn't been for the thick panel of glass that separated them, their hands would be touching; their fingers would be interlocking, holding onto one another for dear life.

It was all too much for Derek.

"…you have to give me a chance to show you how sorry I am. I'm sorry, okay?"

As soon as her soft hands wrapped around him, soaked with rainwater, he felt that same burning sensation, and he couldn't stand it. He couldn't process anything except his need to get away from her.

"I'm gonna go," he said. "You stay. I'll get my clothes in the morning."

"No no no no," Addison stammered. "We can survive this, Derek we can survive this. We're…we're Addison and Derek!"

"I can't look at you," Derek swallowed. "I look at you and I feel nauseous. I just…we're not Derek and Addison anymore."

Her eyes widened in such a way that he had to look away, because if he stared long enough, those beautiful eyes would remind him of not just his cheating wife.

"If you go now, we are not going to get through this," Addison cried. "We don't have a chance, if you go now."

But Derek barely heard her for slamming the door shut behind him. He couldn't think about anything besides getting as far away as possible. He wanted to hyperventilate, cry, scream…anything. Instead, he was numb.

And yet, what he hadn't understood was that there was, in fact, a greater meaning behind Addison's words.

_We don't have a chance, if you go now._

He hadn't understood that the 'we' she was referring to was not just the two of them.

He hadn't realized that if he had just looked thirty degrees to the left, he would have seen a pair of eyes identical to those he had to shield himself from hiding in the shadows. A head of long, dark hair. A pair of ears that had heard everything.

If he had looked thirty degrees to the left, he would have seen that he was not the only one to have their heart broken that night.

* * *

**May 2009**

Derek remembered the endless hours of driving, of feeling like if he had stopped, he would have given the past enough time to catch up to him.

What he didn't realize now, amidst his early morning jog, was that even though he was mere yards away from the trailer he had lived in for the past three years, Derek Shepherd was still running away.

* * *

The following morning, there were no cherry blossoms or salty air to flood Derek's head with memories of his move to the West Coast. In fact, by the time he arrived at Seattle Grace Hospital, there wasn't even sunlight, which matched his mood perfectly.

"Oh, I asked them not to wake you," his patient sneered as he stormed into the dimly lit room, dressed entirely in black. The thought of changing into scrubs or a lab coat hadn't even crossed his mind. "I said 'whatever it is, it can wait 'til morning.' Dr. Shepherd needs his beauty sleep."

Derek sighed, not in the mood to engage with the man.

"Your latest head CT shows that the brain contusions are expanding," he muttered without looking up. According to his chart, the patient's name was William Dunn. "I'm gonna get you into the OR right away."

His patient stared at him blankly.

"This...this brain thing, it...it could kill me?"

"If we don't treat it, yes," Derek replied.

To his annoyance, the patient began to laugh.

"You find that funny?" It was more of a statement than a question.

"I'm sorry," his patient laughed. "It's just that they're gonna execute me in five days. Five days. Might as well take my chances with this brain thing, right?"

That caught Derek's attention, forcing him to look up from the chart.

"Mr. Dunn…"

"You gotta admit, it's a nice way to go. Plenty of attractive females...all the Jell-O I could want. Have you tried the strawberry? It'll change your life."

"You're refusing surgery?" Again more of a statement.

"Either way, I'm going to die, Dr. Shepherd," Mr. Dunn replied, staring off at the wall. "Might as well do it on your watch."

* * *

 

Breathing deeply, Derek lay down on his back on the on-call room bed. William Dunn's words played back in his head over and over, and it was all Derek could do not to scream.

_Either way I'm going to die. Might as well do it on your watch._

His entire career as a doctor he had dealt with death and recognized the fine line that existed between valuing human life, and accepting something as just part of the job and moving on.

And yet he never wanted to accept it as part of the job.

Closing his eyes, Derek remembered back to his intern year, the year he decided that neurosurgery would be his specialty. Everyone at the hospital had thought that it was his wife, Addison, who was the "sensitive" one, the one who took patient deaths too personally, and the one who would come home in tears, acting out either by cradling their toddler daughter, or throwing inanimate objects against the wall. There was no in between.

But what they didn't know was that Derek too had had his fair share of punches to the wall during his residency, of thoughts that screamed _what if I had only done this, what if I had suggested that treatment instead, what if, what if, what if?_

Now, Derek didn't like to think about that side of him or the memories of when that side of him came out, because so many of those memories were paired with other things he didn't like to think about, and reoccurring dreams he was desperate to be rid of.

In the dream he was back in New York City, hearing the sound in the background of cars going by, of the fall leaves crunching as couples walked together through the park, and sometimes of Carrie playing with her doll Samantha. Samantha had sheer angel wings and Derek's mother had whispered to Carrie that she had magic powers and could fly.

Carrie had worn her favorite dress, a navy blue and white flowered Marc Jacobs dress that Addison had picked out for Carrie's birthday. Derek came home, so angry and frustrated that after two years, he had lost one of his very first patients to a ruthless brain tumor. He had wanted to scream, shut himself away for weeks, and forget the world.

Then, as if a higher power had intervened, the silhouette of his child appeared, who had been standing at the front room window, waiting for him to get home. Without another thought he dropped everything he had been holding onto the floor-a briefcase with patient files, mostly-and lifted Carrie into his arms. She was five, with laughing ocean blue eyes and cascades of dark auburn waves, and she slung her skinny arm around his neck and pressed her face into his shoulder.

In the dream Derek would remember that he was wise, and knew there was no better life, no greater goodness, than what he already had. He held Carrie and promised nothing bad would ever happen to her, and if he could have slept forever those words would be true. Closing his eyes prolonged the vision, shielded him from the fluorescent lights of a hospital that was filled with death every single day, and enhanced the hallucination that Carrie was with him still and always.

His daughter-the one death he wished more than anything he could keep on his own watch, and he couldn't.

* * *

**One day later**

Of course his mother would make something as simple as an airport pick-up complicated. But that was the thing about Carolyn Shepherd; as much as Derek loved her and knew her intentions were good, she liked to meddle. She liked to have things done her way. She would do anything for the people she loved, even if it meant the exact opposite of what they asked.

"Are you in the north terminal?" Derek asked, cell phone up to his ear.

It was all he could do to keep the driver's annoyed demeanor under control, after hearing something along the lines of _yes_ and _she's not here_.

"Well that's where she's supposed to be," Derek replied, pausing near the nurses' station.

The driver murmured something about leaving.

"No, no don't go anywhere," Derek said. "Just wait."

He was just about to hang up and dial his mother's cell phone when a hand touched his shoulder. Glancing over, he noticed it was exactly the woman he'd been talking about.

"Never mind," he sighed into the phone. "I found her."

Carolyn raised an eyebrow.

"You know there's a town car waiting for you at the airport," Derek said lightly.

"I don't need a fancy car," Carolyn replied, leaning in to kiss his cheek. "Just hopped on the bus, saved you some money."

Derek smiled, shaking his head slightly. "So this cruise…you just happened to have a layover in Seattle?"

"Well, I've always wanted to check out the Space Needle," Carolyn shrugged as the two of them walked down the hospital hallway. "I understand you can see Mount Rainier from the top."

"Oh, really?" Derek countered. "Anything else you want to check out?"

"You gonna take me or not?" Carolyn asked, not missing a beat.

"I got back-to-back surgeries, Ma," Derek responded truthfully. "You gotta give me a little more notice."

"Yeah, yeah." His mother gave him a wave of the hand. "I gave birth to five doctors, I know the drill. I can wait, maybe meet your colleagues. Is that Mark Sloan?"

As fate would have it, Derek's ex-best-friend-turned-best-friend-again was headed straight toward them. Couldn't be on purpose, Derek thought to himself, since he knew Mark was trying to avoid Carolyn like Derek was trying to avoid thinking about the fact that this is the first time his mother had visited since Carrie's accident.

"Yeah," Derek breathed.

"Mark Sloan!" Carolyn called. "Oh, Mrs. Shepherd, you look great," Mark greeted her with an air of cheeriness before checking on a fake page. "Oh damn," he said dryly. "Catch up later?"

Not a moment later and Mark's place was taken by Meredith, donned in an overly high ponytail tied by an overly pink hair scrunchy.

"Uh, oh, perfect timing," Derek stammered, caught off guard slightly. "Um, Mom, this is Meredith."

Carolyn raised an eyebrow, followed by her signature I'm-about-to-meddle-in-your-life smile. "Meredith, finally."

Derek could feel his forehead crease with anxiety upon hearing his girlfriend's exaggerated "hi!" as his mother pulled her into a tight hug.

"My son has been acting like a dog with his favorite bone, hiding you away," Carolyn said. "I hope you're free for lunch. I can't wait to dive in and find out all about you."

Swallowing, Derek tried to push the thought of his mother and Meredith having lunch together aside and focus on his upcoming surgeries.

If he focused on his upcoming surgeries, he could forget about the problems (differences of opinion, whatever you wanted to call it) he and Meredith had been having.

He could forget about the fact that the guy he had to operate on was a convicted murderer.

He could forget about the dream.

He could forget about her.

* * *

Later that night, Derek and Carolyn sat outside on a bench near the hospital's entrance, street lamps and crescent moonlight illuminating both of their faces. He could tell his mother desperately wanted to talk to him, and a part of him really wanted to hear her voice since it had been so long, but the other was perfectly content to sit there in silence, leaving the potential there for anything to happen, anything at all.

"Your father always wanted you to have this, for the right girl," Carolyn said, breaking the silence and handing him a small box. "Addie wasn't right, clearly."

For a moment Derek's mouth went dry and he swore he felt his heart stop in his chest. It had been over two years since his daughter passed away and his wife left. To hear either of their names said so casually, a reminder of them and what his life used to be, stole the breath from his chest, air snatched away from him just as quickly as the joyful moments of his past.

"You spent less than an hour with Meredith," he managed. "You barely even know her."

"I know enough," Carolyn replied. "I know...it's easier to have compassion for a good person than a murderer. I know how angry you still are about what happened to Dad. And Carrie."

Derek's heart pounded in his chest. Two years later and he still wasn't ready to talk about Carrie with anyone, not even his own mother. There was only one other person who could really understand, and she had been gone from his life for just as long.

"Of course I'm angry," he snapped. But, immediately regretting his tone, he followed with, "aren't you?"

"With respect to your dad...I still can't sleep on his side of the bed," his mother admitted. "The mattress is wearing unevenly. But no...I'm not angry, not anymore."

Derek was silent, waiting for her to continue. As much as he didn't want her to, he knew she would.

"And Carrie…" Carolyn said the name quietly. "I loved that little girl. I always will. In a lot of ways, she was just like you. Smart, passionate, and maybe a little stubborn. What happened to her was...devastating, horrible, but we keep going. Even if our loved ones can't. We put one foot in front of the other. We don't let the past keep us from doing what needs to be done right now."

A lump formed in Derek's throat, threatening to suffocate him. He knew his mother well enough to sense that she had been wanting to talk about her granddaughter all day, just as much as she'd wanted to meet her son's girlfriend. Either that, or she was masking the conversation she really wanted to have with Derek with going on and on about Meredith.

Derek didn't want to talk about his daughter; his strong-willed mother would just make sure he listened. Still, no matter how much Carolyn wanted him to listen, he refused to sit back and let her talk about Carrie as if her death were not an accident. The anger he felt about his father's murder was completely different from the devastation he felt from his daughter's.

One death was deliberate, the other was not.

"Carrie's was an accident," he muttered. "Dad's was not."

Carolyn gazed at him sympathetically, pushing to accept something he swore he never would. "Sweetheart. You see things in black and white. Meredith doesn't."

At this point, the only word Derek could formulate was, "no."

"You need a spoonful of that," Carolyn said, grabbing his hand. "You need her. She's the one."

Was she?


	3. Chapter 3

_ Addison  
_ **May 2009**

This was Malibu but nothing like the Malibu you heard about on the East Coast or throughout other parts of the country. Back there it was all movie stars and scandals and tan blonde girls in late-model Porsches who made people wonder, “Were they up-and-coming actors on shows that hadn’t aired yet and if so did they guy the car themselves, or were they just so pretty they were being kept by an older man rich and lonely enough to trade expensive presents for attention and affection?”

Addison knew a little about such things. She’d been living here for two years, and was now partial owner of a medical practice in Santa Monica, started by two of her best friends, Sam and Naomi Bennett. So naturally, the occasional upper-class, well-connected patient would come through her office and gossip through small talk. 

But in her personal life, Addison generally wasn’t interested, and preferred to stay home. She liked the way the ocean provided her with an endless backyard, yet the canyon enclosed her, made her feel protected in a strange way, because really, what could be more dangerous than Malibu, with its earthquakes, mudslides, and wildfires?

Maybe that outward danger comforted her somehow and reinforced her sense of how impermanent it all was. As a doctor, Addison was all too familiar with the fragility of life, how one moment you could be absolutely fine with a perfectly healthy baby, and the next you’re lying on the operating table fighting for your life, after what you thought were normal contractions.

While that particular situation hadn’t happened to Addison personally, she had bore witness to it many times. 

Instead, personally, she felt the loss of her daughter Carrie so acutely, the specifics of their days together, the constellations marking moments in their lives. Who they had been, Addison and Carrie, mother and daughter, would last forever; but who Carrie, and what their relationship would have become, ended with the accident.

In her profession Addison dealt with the real and the evidential, patterns she found in dealing with patients with similar symptoms, and figuring out how to treat them. Even as a child she’d loved sitting in the back of whatever lecture hall her father was teaching in, practicing sutures on a hot dog skin. Helping and giving as much love as she could to people had always been her passion, a passion she had no idea just how strongly she passed along to her daughter.

Addison could remember being just 24 years old, in her second year of medical school at Columbia and pregnant, thanks to a prolonged honeymoon phase of her marriage. How studying for exams actually became easier after Carrie was born, as if the hurricane of love that was her daughter was so much less distracting when it existed outside of her body. Most nights during her pregnancy Addison would lay awake with a hand on her protruding belly—either her husband’s or her own—feeling her heart swell to thrice its normal size every time her baby moved, her textbooks neglected on the side table.

From the moment she was conceived, that was how Carrie always behaved: a hurricane of love. She took after her mother when it came to emotion. It wasn’t unusual for Addison to return from her office, walk through the front door, and have Carrie barrel over, leap right onto her, arms locked around her neck, saying “Why were you gone so long?”

It wasn’t unusual for Carrie to bring all of her homework downstairs and curl up against her father with a book, even as she entered teenagerhood.

And so, it didn’t surprise Addison that Carrie did everything she could to keep her parents’ marriage from falling apart; everything from planning dinner dates for them, to ‘casually’ bringing up memories of the ‘good old days,’ like vacations the family had taken when she was little, or how she couldn’t wait for the first snow of winter because that was when they’d always run outside and build a snowman together. She would even bring up the story of how Addison and Derek met; a story she’d loved hearing ever since she was old enough to understand. 

But the downside of this was that Carrie took it  _ all _ in: the good and the bad. She took the deterioration of her parents’ marriage to heart, her sensitive girl. Addison knew her daughter’s heart was breaking, yet she couldn’t piece it back together the way she desperately wanted.

And that killed her. So she’d do what she could to make her daughter’s—unknowing—last few months in New York just a little bit easier.

When Addison was a child and her family would summer in Martha’s Vineyard, both she and her brother Archer had developed a love and craving for night swims, and Addison had passed that love onto Carrie—a state champion swimmer. Every Saturday spent at their house in the Hamptons, they would walk the five hundred yards down to the beach and dive into the tepid Atlantic Ocean, with nothing more than moon and starlight to show them the way.

The weather didn’t matter. They would swim on stormy nights as happily as warm, calm ones. But now, glancing out the back door of her Malibu home, Addison could never bring herself to touch the water, because as much as the ocean calmed her, her broken heart and constant yearning for her daughter remained just the same. 

Both she and Carrie had loved rough water, swimming after storms. It took everything she had to make Carrie stay inside until the worst was over—and when it was, they’d run down to the beach, lean into the strong wind, feel the power of the tremendous waves. 

The summer before Carrie died, and just two weeks before Addison’s night with Mark and then Derek’s resulting move, the remnants of Hurricane Cindy tore through the East Coast. Derek had been glued to his work, and by the time Addison had realized that they were right in the storm’s path she and Carrie had already gone away to the Hamptons for the weekend. Carrie had spent half the time on her phone, talking or texting with Jason, making sure he was alright. The two were together constantly, and there was almost bound to be a power outage; Addison could already imagine Carrie’s panic. But she was secretly glad to have her daughter to herself.

Together she and Carrie shuttered the windows as the temperature rose, the air damp and tropical. The air was still, the sky blue with high thin clouds. When the wind barely started picking up, it turned the leaves on the maple trees upside down, and the sky became the color of a yellowing bruise. 

Addison and Carrie changed into their bathing suits and ran down the hill, across the road and through the sand and beach grass. By now the normal-sized waves were swelling, rolling high up onto the shore. They dropped their towels and dove in. The breeze was so warm, but so was the water, as if the tropical storm were already here but hadn’t yet fully shown itself.

“Mom, I think I found something!” Carrie had said, voice raised above the sound of the crashing waves. Addison stood, watching her reach down into the water and pull up a bottle with a piece of paper inside—a message. Carrie had opened it immediately.

_ Hello, my name is Sophie, I am 14 years old. The storm is coming. My family lives near Virginia Beach. If you find this, please write me! _

Included was an address. Carrie had written back, swearing that the two would become pen pals. 

Later that evening, both mother and daughter ate dinner outside, on the porch, with candles in hurricane lamps. The wind began to shake the trees, and they could hear the surf smashing over the sandbar. 

“I want to get married in a hurricane,” Carrie said. 

“With a tent in the yard that can blow away?” Addison said.

“Yes! And Jason and I will wear wetsuits instead of a suit and gown, and we’ll all go swimming at the peak of the storm. Maybe we’ll say our vows in the water.”

“Oh, that sounds romantic,” Addison joked.

Carrie sighed. “I just...want everything to stay like this.” 

Addison waited for her to continue.

“In a few years I’ll be in college,” Carrie said. “And we won’t be together anymore. Not Jason and me, or you and me and Dad...”

Addison chuckled. “Honey, you do know Columbia is like a twenty minute drive from our house right?”

Carrie picked at her thumbnail, a habit she picked up right after she had quit biting two years ago.

“I know,” she said. “But it won’t be the same. All those things we do together now, we won’t be able to just... _ do _ them anymore. Like running in the park, or looking at the stars, or even coming out here and going swimming. We’ll have to plan ahead all the time, like I have to do with Daddy since he started working so much.”

Addison felt her heart skip a beat as her daughter’s piercing ocean eyes looked up and into hers; an intense love for her baby who had grown into a beautiful young woman, and seemingly overnight. But the melancholy was equally as intense, because she knew how much Derek’s absence was affecting their daughter, even if Carrie didn’t always show it. Setting her plate aside, Addison held out her arms.

“Come here,” she said, and without hesitation her 15 year old snuggled up against her in the lounge chair, the wind whipping through her long auburn hair, tickling her mother’s chin. 

“Oh, I do love you, Little Bear,” Addison muttered, hugging her daughter tightly. Bear: Carrie’s nickname since birth.

“I love you too, Mama,” Carrie replied, arm around Addison’s middle.

Suddenly, it was as if the storm outside didn’t even exist.

“Second to maybe shoes, there is nothing I love more than being your mother,” Addison said, making Carrie laugh. “That being said, wherever you go to college, or wherever you are, I’ll always be there when you need me. Whatever you need me for.”

Carrie looked up at her, chin resting on her mother’s chest. “You promise?” 

Addison kissed her daughter’s forehead. “Yes, baby. I promise.”

“Good,” Carrie said, laying her head back down.

“Or you know, I could just move to college with you,” Addison shrugged.

Carrie grinned. “Don’t joke.”

“What makes you think I’m joking?” Addison replied, peering down at her daughter with a serious expression until the pair couldn’t help but giggle.

“I know it probably seems kind of silly, me thinking this way, but I can’t help it. What if I go away and something happens to you or Dad?”

Addison knew how much Carrie worried about her father, and she wished she wouldn’t. But telling her daughter not to worry, or not to give so much of her heart to the people she loved was like telling a fish to breathe air. It just couldn’t happen.  

“Honey,” Addison said. “I’m healthy, Daddy’s healthy. We’re going to live a long time, and I promise you once you hit college you’ll be annoyed by me.” 

“Promise?” Carrie asked again.

“Cross my heart. Just so long as you promise me one thing too.”

Carrie’s ocean eyes met Addison’s again. “What is it?” she asked quietly. The gusty wind made it almost impossible to hear.

“That  _ you _ , my girl, live a long and healthy life too.”

Carrie hugged Addison tightly, and despite the impending storm, Addison swore she felt infinite in this moment. That this moment made every single fear she’d ever had about motherhood wash away into the depths of the ocean. She kissed her daughter’s head.

And Carrie told her, “I’ll do the best that I can, Mom.”

* * *

The past two days had left Addison exhausted. From dealing with a little girl at work battling a devastating case of Cystic Fibrosis, to a near (and possibly needed) breakup with her boyfriend at home, all she wanted to do was fall into bed and bury herself under a mountain of blankets. 

The old Addison would have dove straight into the ocean, not caring that she was fully clothed, and let the salt water wash away all of her earthly problems. 

She flashed back to last night. 

“There are other things I could be doing,” her boyfriend Kevin had said as the two of them sat on her back porch together. “I get a lot of invitations. My friends, women…”

Addison wasn’t sure if this was supposed to upset or annoy her, or both. She knew at this point she should be used to not being good enough for a man. It had happened with Derek, and she had pushed Mark so far away that she didn’t think he would ever come within ten miles of her heart again.

“So what, you want to date other women?” she snapped at Kevin. 

He sighed, the nighttime ocean breeze making them both shiver. 

“Maybe I do, but I don’t. I’m not.” Yet. “Because this is  _ so much fun _ .”

_ What do you want from me?!  _ Addison wanted to scream at him. She gave so much of herself to everything and everyone in her life, and after losing Carrie she was surprised she had even made it this far. 

Not 15 minutes later Kevin left, and Addison cleared off their dinner plates from the outside table, exhaling the tension from her chest. It was times like this where she couldn’t really be sure how much she loved living alone. On the one hand, she needed time away from Kevin, to figure out what she was really doing being in that relationship, and to allow the sting of his words to leave her heart. But on the other, she desperately craved someone to talk to. 

Addison closed the sliding glass door behind her. She spent about five minutes standing at the sink washing dishes, before giving up and making a beeline for the half-empty bottle of pinot noir. As if she hadn’t drank enough already. 

Sighing, Addison pulled a glass out of the cabinet and poured it about halfway full, then raising it upward in a toast. 

“Here’s to you, Bear,” she whispered. 

But no sooner did the glass touch her lips than the doorbell rang. 

Her heart began to race; she didn’t think she could deal with Kevin returning for round two. 

“I’m not in the mood Kevin,” she began, striding toward the door. “I’ll call you tomorrow and we can-” 

Except when she opened the door it was not Kevin standing there but her best friend and colleague, Naomi. 

“Oh, hi,” Addison greeted her in surprise.

“Oh great you’ve already started,” Naomi responded, noting the glass of wine. She brushed past Addison and into the kitchen.

“By all means,” Addison muttered to herself, closing the door. 

“Am I replaceable?” Naomi asked pointedly, after pouring herself a glass. 

“What?” Addison blinked at her. 

Naomi leaned back against the counter. “Replaceable. Am I really  _ that _ easily replaceable?” 

“What are you talking about?” Addison asked.

“Maya, my daughter! You know, Sam’s got this new girlfriend and she’s beautiful and fun and I’m just...I do  _ homework _ , I’m boring…”

Addison found herself annoyed yet equally grateful for the distraction. Her best friend knew better than anyone how carefully to tread around the subject of a teenage daughter. Naomi knew how much Addison yearned for those awfully cliche bickering, insecure mother/daughter moments, yet it was always Addison who told her “no, keep talking about it. Tell me about Maya. Don’t let my tragedy erase all of the  _ good _ and  _ normal _ from the world.” 

“Nai, you’re her mom,” Addison reassured her, taking a sip of wine. “You’re supposed to do homework and all of that ‘boring mom’ stuff.” 

“I know, I know,” Naomi sighed. “It’s just...seeing them together makes me feel…there’s not even a word for it!” 

“Come on,” Addison said, leaning against the kitchen island across from her. “Sonya’s just n- wait when have you seen the three of them together?” 

Her best friend looked down toward the floor, muttering something along the lines of “yesterday.”

Addison strained to hear her. “Did you say yesterday?” 

“I snuck into your house last night and peeked at them over your back fence while they were having dinner,” Naomi mumbled quickly. 

Addison’s eyes widened. “You did what?” she responded forcefully.

“Ah shh,” Naomi stopped her. “I  _ had _ to. For the safety of my child.”

Addison scoffed. “Are you serious? You’re being serious with me right now?” 

Naomi exhaled, setting her glass down on the counter. 

“She’s her new mommy,” she choked, one hand covering her face. “That’s Maya’s new mommy.” 

“Oh honey,” Addison comforted, pulling her best friend into a one-armed hug. “You know that’s not true.” 

“Yes it is,” Naomi replied, trying to hold back tears as Addison rubbed her back. “And I can’t stand it, I can’t...I’m  _ angry _ . There it is, that’s the word. I’m angry!” 

And Addison knew exactly the feeling.

“Okay, come here, come here,” Addison soothed, leading them toward the living room sofa where the two sat down next to each other. “As your best friend I am going to say something now that you might not want to hear, but comes from a place of love, because I care about you.”

“What is it?” Naomi sputtered, wiping her eyes. 

“I think that,” Addison spoke slowly. “This might not be entirely about Maya. I think that it is possible that you are still very much in love with Sam.” 

“What, no, no,” Naomi stammered. “No I am not, we’re divorced,  _ happily _ divorced. I am not still in love with him, I-”

“Nai, Nai,” Addison stopped her, taking a deep breath and meeting her gaze. “Divorce does not always mean you stop loving them.” 

Addison’s eyes swam, and suddenly the room filled with the presence of someone who lived a thousand miles away. 

“It’s been two years, Addie,” Naomi said gently. 

“I know,” Addison sighed. “But we’re not talking about me. We’re talking about you and Sam, and Maya.” 

“But you know, we can, if you want to,” Naomi said softly. “Talk about you.” 

Addison shook her head, closing her eyes. 

“Truthfully, I...don’t think I’ll ever stop loving Derek.” Her ex-husband’s name tasted like pennies in her mouth. “But he stopped loving me a long time ago.”

“Addie.” Naomi eyes were sad. “You did everything you could.” 

“No,” Addison whispered, a single tear spilling down her cheek. “I didn’t. My daughter did.”

* * *

 

2:41am. The glowing red letters stared her straight in the face, taunting her as she lie in bed, sleep nowhere to be found. Addison had rolled over countless times, listened to the waves rolling in and out outside her house, even tried reading over patient charts. Still nothing. She was awake, her mind racing, nothing and no one able to stop it. Light from the crescent moon shone through her window.

She took a deep breath, feeling the softness of Carrie’s stuffed elephant against her fingertips. Herbie, Carrie had called him when she was three, and Addison had slept with him in her arms every night since her daughter died. 

The lump returned to her throat as she leaned down and nuzzled the elephant’s head. If she concentrated hard enough, it was almost as if she had her baby back in her arms. 

Addison’s phone lit up on the bedside table, alerting her that it had reached its full charge. She glanced over; that clock was no kinder. It was now only 2:48. 

She reached for the phone and opened up her email.  _ No unread messages _ , her inbox read. Despite her impossibly busy work life, Addison had always kept a clean inbox. 

_ New message _ , she clicked. 

Her thumbs were on autopilot as she typed out two words.

The message: “Bear.”

Addressed to: Derek Shepherd.

 

* * *

_ So I’m gonna ask this again, but this time, pretend you think I’m human. You want to maybe have dinner with me sometime? A date? _

Addison replayed Dr. Wyatt Lockhart’s words through her head again and again, first presented to her over a plate of cafeteria macaroni and cheese. 

Her answer:  _ I...don’t think that’s a good idea _ . 

But why wasn’t it a good idea? Because of Kevin, the cop who was this close to dumping her? Because of Mark? Derek? Carrie? 

In the end, she given Wyatt a definite no. So then why, after leaving her office for the day, did she press “4” in the elevator instead of the ground floor? What was she doing walking straight toward Wyatt’s office?

A part of her knew. Today had been a really bad patient day. She and Wyatt had spent hours testing out a unique treatment for her little girl with a bad case Cystic Fibrosis, one that had ended up failing. So now not only was this kid going to die, she had to be permanently separated from the rest of her family because they, too, had CF. 

Addison wasn’t sure which was worse: to have your child die, or know your child was alive yet you could never hold them again, thanks to an incurable bacteria.

And then there was the voicemail. Her phone had made the all-too-familiar pinging sound as soon as she had locked her office door. Her heart began to race, the way it always did when it was about to tell her to do something rash. 

She headed toward the elevator, trying to look as normal as possible while swallowing the lump that morphed in her throat as soon as the name “Derek Shepherd” appeared on her screen. He had responded to her message, by leaving her a voicemail.

Addison’s eyes welled up as she stepped into the elevator. She was on guard. She wanted nothing more than to hear Derek Shepherd’s voice and give him her heart on a silver platter, but she never could. Not again.

“Screw it,” she muttered to herself, shoving her phone deep into the pocket of her bag and jamming her finger against the little lit up button that said “4.” 

Maybe she was here because of Derek after all.

Addison knocked, and the tall slender figure that was Wyatt Lockhart appeared in front of her. 

“I don’t know what I’m doing here,” she whispered, only half-truthfully. 

On the one hand, she craved the feeling of Wyatt’s lips against hers; lips that could make her forget about the constant grief that was her life, or the fact that she could no longer deny the impending break-up of the most serious relationship she’d had since Derek (as pathetic as that sounded). 

On the other, she felt sick to her stomach. What was this life she had created for herself, where she existed without the two people who made her world go ‘round? None of these questions seemed to have answers.

But Wyatt was right there, his hands cupping her face, lips covering hers. 

Their tongues began to duel, and Addison wrapped her arms around his neck. This was a kiss she could feel, all the way down to her tingling fingers. She felt herself getting lost, letting the rhetoric of questions fade into the background...then her stomach churned, and she pulled away as if his touch had given her an electric shock.

For a second the two of them stood there, breathing heavily.

“What’s wrong?” Wyatt asked, moving toward her. 

“I’m sorry,” Addison breathed. “I can’t do this.” She wanted to back away from him, but her feet seemed to be cemented to the floor. “I can...I can’t do this.”

Wyatt must have expected her to storm out, because when she didn’t he looked surprised. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked carefully.

Addison exhaled, burying her face in her hand, but only for a second. 

“I, uh…” she sputtered, trying to keep her face from screwing up. Nevertheless, it did.

“Here.” Wyatt gestured toward the sofa, against the wall of his office. “Why don’t you sit down?”

Addison’s chest heaved up and down as she tried desperately to swallow all of the emotions that swirled through her. Her heels clicked against the hardwood floor as she went to sit down, willing her knees not to give out. Wyatt sat down next to her, careful not to touch her, looking at her with concern in his eyes as Addison thought of Derek and Carrie and tried to keep breathing. Two years after the fact, it felt like no time had passed. Breath was still a razor blade in and out, in and out. Why did Addison get to breathe when Carrie didn’t?

“Was it something I-” Wyatt began, but Addison cut him off. 

“No, no, it wasn’t anything you did,” she blurted. “Truthfully, you...you remind me of my ex-husband.”

And he did. Brilliant, driven, and maybe little arrogant; Derek, to a T.

Wyatt was silent, willing her to continue. Or not knowing what to say. Addison entertained both thoughts, and remembered back to earlier this week when Wyatt confided in her about his divorce. Now, it was her turn.

“It’s been two years since the divorce,” she managed, resting her hands on her lap and staring down at them. “I’m over him, I am, I just…”

“It takes a lot out of you,” Wyatt said.

“Yeah, it does,” Addison nodded. “Derek and I...we were together a long time. We have-we  _ had _ a daughter together.” 

_ Had _ . The word tasted like pennies in her mouth. She blinked hard, and Wyatt took hold of her hand.

“Carrie was sixteen,” she continued. “She died in a car crash up in Seattle two years ago.”

Wyatt held her hand tightly, waiting.

“She was driving. It happened on our road, at the end of our driveway. She was a good driver, but she missed the turn.” 

And the last bit, the bit that tore Addison’s heart to shreds every time the thought crossed her mind.

“The police think she did it on purpose.”

Addison leaned back, and Wyatt pulled her toward his chest. No one spoke, and the air felt thick, yet still she let him hold her. Addison imagined the ocean waves, less than a mile away from them, flowing in and out, crashing against the sand, restless and discordant. The longer they sat there, the more she could feel the spirit of her daughter and ex-husband, so far away yet standing right beside her. She didn’t want to move.

“I used to have this dream,” she began. “From the time Carrie was little. She’d be in danger, always getting hurt or falling down, but there would always be something there to pick her up again, either me, or Derek, or just...something. And she’d look at me and smile and say ‘don’t worry, Mama. I’m doing the best that I can.’”

Addison swallowed, feeling Wyatt’s hand running up and down her arm, soothing her. 

“I’m so sorry, Addison,” he whispered. 

“Yeah,” she breathed. “Yeah, me too.”

“Do you…” he stuttered, as if afraid to ask. “Do you think she…?”

“I think,” Addison cut him off softly. “I think she did the best that she could. I’m just not sure that I did.”   
  



	4. Chapter 4

_ Carrie  
_ **October 1999**

_ Second only to Christmas, Halloween was my favorite holiday as a kid. I remember being five, six, then seven years old, visiting my aunts and cousins in Connecticut so we could all get dressed up and go trick-or-treating together.  _

_ My favorite costume year was 1997, when I was six and both my parents, uncle Mark, and I dressed up as members the Addams Family; Gomez, Morticia, Uncle Fester, and little Wednesday. I even taped a paper hand on top of Herbie, my stuffed elephant, and carried him around with me as Thing.  _

_ At that point in my life I had four Shepherd cousins, and all of them had been close to my age. On Halloween night we spent almost two hours running around our grandma Carolyn’s neighborhood, knocking on door after door, then racing back to Grandma’s house to compare our candy stashes. Inevitably I would trade all of my York Peppermint Patties for my cousin Amanda’s Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups; peanut butter has always been one of my favorite foods, a trait passed down to me from my mother and with no shame. _

_ But I wasn’t always like the other kids. As much as I loved running around on a sugar high with my cousins on Halloween night, I was just as happy walking alongside the adults, sandwiched between my mom and dad as they held my hands, giving me the occasional gentle swing back and forth.  _

_ Typical Only Child Syndrome, I guess. It wasn’t that I had trouble fitting in with my cousins, rather I had always felt such a strong connection to my parents; they were sort of like my best friends, and I never felt like I was lacking, growing up without a sibling. The three of us, we were enough for each other. Derek, Addison, and Carrie.  _

_ “Higher, Daddy, higher!” I giggled, clinging tightly to his hand as he and Mom swung me back and forth, the nighttime streets filled with the laughter of little kids and illuminated by porch lights and creepy decorations. I loved every part of it. _

_ “Seriously, little brother, tell me your secret,” my aunt Nancy joked.  _

_ “What secret?” Dad laughed, swinging me again.  _

_ “To parenting!” Nancy chuckled. “How do you get your child to love you this much? I can barely get mine to come downstairs for breakfast in the mornings.” _

_ I simply grinned up at my parents. Despite the flowing black wig and dark lipstick, my mother looked back at me with the warmest smile. She and I both knew, there was no secret. There was just us. _

_ “Well,” my dad began. “Okay. The secret. Here’s what I got. Whenever I hear a little voice say ‘higher, Daddy!’ I just do THIS!”  _

_ Suddenly my father’s hands were underneath my arms, and he’s tossing me into the air, shrieks of laughter escaping my lungs as I land in his embrace. _

_ “Is that what you meant by higher?” he grinned, kissing my cheek. _

_ “Yes! Yes!” I giggled. “Again!”  _

_ “Derek!” I heard Mom half-laugh half-shriek. “Injure my baby and you sleep outside!” _

_ Aunt Nancy snorted. “I see your little secret to parenting doesn’t necessarily translate to marriage, does it O Wise One?” _

_ My aunts and parents would banter, but again and again my daddy would toss me into the air, and in those moments the thought occurred to me: maybe there could be one good, solid secret after all. No matter how far away I went, the people I loved most would always be there to catch me. _

* * *

_ This year, we decided not to drive up to Connecticut for Halloween, because for the first time ever my K-12 New York City private school rented out a small portion of Central Park to host our very own “haunted” carnival. It had been a fairly warm fall season and according to my mother, who was a member of the Parents Association and the Booster Club, the carnival had been something the high schoolers wanted to put on for us elementary and middle schoolers for quite some time. _

_ Even though I miss our tradition and my cousins, I am, admittedly, very excited. My best friend Morgan hasn’t stopped talking about it for weeks; how there are going to be games, prizes, caramel apples, and best of all, a haunted maze.  _

_ Once again I hold my parents’ hands as we cross the street together that night, with Mom dressed as the Queen of Hearts, Dad as the Mad Hatter, and me as Alice from  _ Alice in Wonderland. _ Yet another of our many ingenious family outfits. _

_ It was past sundown, but there were so many people out running through the park—kids and adults dressed up just like us—and glowing sidewalk lamps as far as I could see.  _

_ To me, the tiny eight year old 3rd grader, the carnival seemed huge. Decorations everywhere; giant jack-o-lanterns, creepy lights, scarecrows—”hey,  _ that’s _ what we should have dressed up as this year!” Daddy jokes. “ _ The Wizard of Oz! _ ”—and skeletons. Older students mill about, dressed up in everything from fairies to grim reapers.  _

_ At this point, none of it scared me. I could still feel my parents’ hands in mine, and I had seen so many varieties of costumes during my years of trick-or-treating. _

_ My eyes widen, taking in everything around me. _

_ “Can we go bob for apples, Mama?” I ask, looking up at my mother and taking in her billowing dress.  _

_ I remember going to the store with her to pick it out, after we all had decided that  _ Alice in Wonderland _ would be our theme for the holiday. I had sat in the corner of the dressing room until she needed my hands to zip her up in the back. She turned around to face me, and I took in the red and black dress, covered in white lace and hearts.  _

_ “Well?” she smiled at me, placing her hands on her hips. “What do you think, Bear?”  _

_ She turned toward the mirror, giving herself a once-over while subconsciously running her hand through my auburn brown hair. I love when she does that. _

_ As an only child, the majority of my time spent at home is with adults. My grandma told me last summer that this is why my sense of humor or maturity level can sometimes surpass that of my peers. I never like to think about it that way though. I love my school and my friends; I’m just happy to be around people who make me happy, and part of that includes making them laugh.  _

_ One of my favorite feelings in the world is knowing I’m about to say something to make my mother laugh because to me, there is no better sound in the world.  _

_ I look up at her. “I think you’re the perfect Evil Queen. Only thing you need now is for your interns to dress up as a deck of cards.” I shrug casually for effect. _

_ As always, Mom caught my reference and laughter filled our dressing room. Addison Shepherd knows better than anyone her reputation for being tough on her surgical interns. She tickled my ribs and, since I’m still small for my age, picked me up to rest on her hip.  _

_ My blushing cheek nestled perfectly against her shoulder as she left a kiss on my forehead.   _

_ “Oh baby girl,” she chuckled. “No one makes me laugh like you do.” _

* * *

_ “Please?” I ask. “Morgan said she’d meet us at the apple booth when we got here!”  _

_ “Then bobbing for apples it is!” Mom smiles.  _

_ “Carrie!” Morgan waves eagerly from in front of the booth, dressed up as zombie ballerina. I glance up at my parents, silently asking their permission to run ahead.  _

_ “Go have fun, kiddo,” Mom says, twirling one of my curls with her finger. We had thought about getting a blonde wig, since I am supposed to be Alice after all, but all of the wigs I tried on had been extremely itchy. By the fifth one, my mother had sighed, saying “baby, I think we’re just gonna have to introduce you to the curling iron this year.” _

_ Thus, the auburn haired Alice emerged. _

_ “Thanks,” I grin, before hurrying over to my best friend. _

_ “Just stay where we can see you, sweetheart!” Dad calls.  _

_ I turn around briefly. “I know, Daddy!” I call back. I can’t help but smile, seeing him wearing that tall green hat and red wig underneath; the best Mad Hatter costume I’ve ever seen. I wave at them, and he wraps an arm around Mom’s waist as she leans into him. _

_ By the time I reach Morgan, she’s beckoning me over.  _

_ “Guess what?” she says, excitedly.  _

_ “You chose that costume because you  _ wanted _ us to fit in with the rest of the girls in our class?” I reply rhetorically. It’s not that the two of us are outcasts, we mostly just do our own thing and don’t pay attention to school fights or drama with other girls. _

_ “Oh ha ha,” Morgan rolls her eyes. “My brother and his friends are going through the haunted maze soon, and they asked  _ us _ if we want to go with them.” _

_ I raise an eyebrow. I may only be eight years old and still not know a lot of things, but if there’s one thing I do know it’s that fifth graders willingly hanging out with third graders just doesn’t happen. A defiance of playground logic, if you will. _

_ “Yeah right,” I challenge. “Fifth graders wanting to hang out with us? Wasn’t Alex the one who called us little maggots the last time I was at your house?” _

_ Morgan brushes me off with a wave of her hand. “Yeah but that was like...last weekend! Times have changed, we’ve grown!” _

_ I roll my eyes at my highly energetic friend. I’ve never been through a haunted maze before, but I love Halloween! Really. How scary could it be? _

_ About a half hour and a couple of booth prizes and face paintings later, Morgan’s brother Alex runs up to us. _

_ “Hey you guys, we’re gonna go get in line for the maze now, come on!”  _

_ Morgan looks at me, silently urging me to come along.  _

_ “Fine,” I exhale. “Let me just ask my parents.”  _

_ I notice Mom and Dad are a couple booths ahead of us, Dad trying his hand at the ring toss. Mom spots me right away, running up to them.  _

_ “Hey, sweetheart,” she greets me, subconsciously fixing the blue bow that holds up my hair. “You and Morgan having fun?” _

_ “Uh huh,” I nod, leaning against her. “We got black cats painted on our cheeks!” I angle my face to show her, making her chuckle. “You guys win anything yet?” I ask. _

_ “Well,” Dad starts, tossing his final ring and successfully landing it on top of a bottle. The high schooler working the booth cheerfully hands him his prize: a large stuffed monkey. _

_ “It appears your stuffed animal collection just gained a new friend.” He tosses the monkey at me playfully, making me giggle. _

_ “Umm I think I’ll let you guys keep this one,” I reply skeptically, handing it back to him. _

_ “What are you and Morgan up to next, huh?” Dad asks, tucking the stuffed animal under his arm.  _

_ “Well…” I begin slowly. “Alex asked us if we want to go through the maze with him and some of his friends. They’re getting in line now. Is...is it okay if I go with them?” _

_ The maze isn’t huge, but it’s not exactly small either, and save for sleepovers at Morgan’s house or Grandma’s house, it’s bigger than anything I’ve ever done without my parents.  _

_ Mom looks over at the line of students hesitantly. Of course since she helped plan this event she knows everything that’s in the maze, still, she’s so protective of me. It’s possible that throughout the entire process she remained in denial that her own daughter would want to branch out and try something new...and maybe a little out of her comfort zone. _

_ “How many kids are in your group?” Dad asks. _

_ “Umm six I think. Me, Morgan, and Alex, and then three of his friends.” _

_ Dad exhales. “Well, if you promise to stick with your group—in the  _ middle _ of your group—I don’t see why not.” _

_ “Thanks, Dad,” I grin. “I’ll come find you guys after we’re through!” _

_ “Wait, honey!” Mom stops me right as I turn to run off. _

_ I pause, glancing back at her. The worry lines on her face pull me back to her. _

_ “What is it?” Dad asks her. _

_ “I just…” Mom breathes. “I think we should go with her. Honey, I think Daddy and I should go with you for your first time through.” _

_ “Mom, please?” I ask, already telling myself not to get too pushy or bratty. My mother has been a worrier my whole life; that’s just who she is, and I’d never want to make her feel bad about it (especially because her own mother was—and is—less than stellar). “I promise I’ll stay with the group.” _

_ She rests her palm against my bare cheek, concern still plastered all over her face. I swallow, trying not to let the unease get to me too much, because right now it’s as if she can sense something I can’t. She knows something I don’t. _

_ “What if we waited for her at the end?” Dad asks soothingly. He can usually sense Mom’s nervousness and protective instincts as well as I can. “That way we can see her in line, know where she is, and find her right when she gets out.” _

_ “I promise I’ll come find you right away!” I add.  _

_ “I think Bear is old enough to handle one event on her own, Addie,” Dad says, rubbing her back.  _

_ Mom’s thumb strokes my cheek a couple times. “Okay,” she nods. “Just one time through and then come find us.” _

_ A wave of excitement passes through me. “Thanks, Mom. I’ll be careful!” _

_ As I’m standing in line with Morgan and our group the air gets cold, like a brisk cold, and suddenly it was like this Halloween had an entirely different vibe. _

_ My best friend’s chattiness and excitement feeds into mine for a while, and I can’t help but feel so grown up, doing something like this on my own. Maybe if I can prove to Mom that I can do this and come out alright at the end, it’ll help ease some of her nerves. _

_ Finally, it’s our group’s turn to go in. I take a deep breath, in and out, swallowing and grabbing hold of Morgan’s hand.  _

_ We enter the room, and the stuffiness and heat engulf me. The music is loud and creepy, and instantly floods my nervous system. I hear kids laughing and screaming both behind and ahead of me. Instinctively, my hands reach upward for my parents’ but were met with nothing. I am forced to remember that I chose this. I pushed them to let me do this on my own, and now I would not be able to see them again until after I journeyed through the maze. _

_ Something jumps out in front of us and Morgan screams, grabbing my arm and pulling us into the next room, which had nothing but a strobe light to illuminate it. I focused on Morgan’s hand around my wrist, something familiar. By now my heart rate has increased threefold, and the further we ventured, the more difficult it became for me to breathe easily. _

_ We enter a long hallway, where bloody handprints decorate the walls. A fog machine releases air thick enough to block our line of sight. A masked figure sneaks up on us and I scream. I am shaking so hard that it feels like we’re only walking about a centimeter at a time, my feet just shuffling. Nothing in this maze is afraid to get in our faces.  _

_ We reach the end of the long hallway and I’m claustrophobic. The walls are closing in on me. I don’t even want Morgan to touch me anymore. I don’t want anything or anyone to touch me. _

_ The constant flashing of the strobe light continues, at this point, probably enough to send someone into an epileptic seizure. An older kid in costume throws a fake axe in my path, muttering a “you’re next.” _

_ Tears sting the backs of my eyes. I don’t like this at all. My mother, the skeptic, had been right. _

_ What happens next I will spend the rest of my life only remembering snippets of.  _

_ I remember entering the next room and seeing what appeared to be surgery happening in a spooky hospital setting. My parents are surgeons. I always thought I knew quite a bit about surgery and babies and brains, at least more than the average 3rd grader. But this is not what I thought surgery was supposed to look like. There is blood everywhere. Surgery is supposed to save people’s lives, but this looks like a crime scene. _

_ Here in the maze there are “doctors” working on a fake body. I can hear the gushy sound of the dummy’s insides being taken apart. I want to throw up, but I can’t look away. At this point I could be screaming and crying, but all I really know is that I can’t breathe. This can’t be right. Doctors are supposed to save lives.  _

_ One of the “doctors” looks up at me, and it turns out they’re masked. An evil, bloody skeleton type mask with black holes where the eyes should be.  _

_ I scream bloody murder, just like the scene in front of me. My skin prickles, like a thousand needles being stuck into me at once, and then I hit autopilot. I’m screaming and screaming. I have no idea where Morgan is; she could be standing right in front of me and it wouldn’t have made any difference.  _

_ The next thing I know, I’m running. Pushing through corners and walls and graveyards and things grabbing at my feet. I don’t even know where I’m going, I just need to run. I hit a wall, and I’m digging and crawling to get underneath, my white tights ripping at the knees.  _

_ I hit another wall, a real wall, and this time it’s outside of the maze. I can’t dig under it, so instead I jump as high as I can over the top, scraping myself up pretty significantly. I jump down and keep running, crying, breathing as hard as I can. I feel like I’m surrounded; something is chasing me, out to harm me, but I can neither hear nor see it.  _

_ “Stop! Stop! Stop!” I scream, willing this feeling of terror that’s ripping me apart to go away. _

_ I have no idea how long I’ve been running. The carnival is far behind me, and I’m deep in the park. It’s dark, and there’s hardly anyone around down here. I find a large tree and immediately fall to my knees, crying out upon the realization of how badly they hurt; streaks of red blood—my own blood—flow down my tights, and I’m sure my costume is ruined.  _

_ I can’t catch my breath and the ground is spinning. I’m terrified, not to mention lost. Images of the bloody “hospital” walls from the maze flash through my mind, except this time I picture my mom’s blood, or my dad’s, or Morgan’s, Auntie Amy’s...everyone’s. Everyone I love dying.  _

_ A wild animal makes a sound from up in the tree and I shriek, crawling away as fast as I can.  _

_ What I remember after that is falling to the ground completely, one kind of darkness making way for another. _

* * *

_ I have brief recollections of the next few days.  _

_ I heard several voices screaming my name in the park that night as I came in and out of consciousness. I must have thrown up, because my mouth tasted like a mixture of stomach acid and something else horrible. _

_ Next, two pairs of arms were holding me, and a woman was sobbing. Even with my eyes closed I could feel that the arms belonged to Mom and Dad. The crying woman was Mom. _

_ “Oh my baby, thank god. Thank god we found you,” she cried, noticing my eyes flutter, her hand holding my head right against her chest. Another voice began to cry behind us, and I realized it was my daddy. _

_ Everything ached, inside and out. I felt so tired, frightened, and out of control.  _

_ I spent the next day and a half in a haze at the hospital, not wanting to be heavily medicated yet terrified of feeling anything. I remember my mom and dad sleeping in my room; both had refused to leave and I didn’t want them to.  _

_ The weather outside turned instantly colder and rainier, and I remember lying awake at night with my sleeping mother’s arms around me, just watching the little droplets race down my window and listening to my daddy’s light snoring from the cot next to us.  _

_ The continuous beeping of my heart monitor did not make me feel better. It seemed impossible for me to calm myself down, as if the maze had unleashed a massive beast of irrational, subconscious fears and behaviors that I had no control of. The only thing I could do, that night in the hospital, was snuggle deeper down against Mom’s chest and wait for the inevitable: my pulse to skyrocket, trigger the monitor and wake her up, and let her soothe me by rubbing circles over my chest with her palm.  _

_ “Mama’s right here, Little Bear,” she would whisper, over and over. “Daddy’s right here.” _

_ It took days before I could really confide in my parents about what happened, and even though I knew they were worried, I still didn’t tell the whole story. For my entire life, my parents were a shining beacon of all things good, and kind, and safe in this world; I couldn’t taint that by telling them all about the giant monster that had taken up residence inside my very core. I loved them too much. _

_ I wish that I had the words to describe how I was feeling. An exact definition with an obvious cure. Sure the maze was scary, but a total dissociative breakdown followed by sleepless nights and irrational fears? This wasn’t over, and I was scared. _

_ This wasn’t just the beginning of the end of my love for Halloween. This was the beginning of the end of a huge aspect of who I was, and more than I could even imagine. _


End file.
